


I want to listen to your melody

by jichaeng



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Rivals to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 14:33:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20047618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jichaeng/pseuds/jichaeng
Summary: haven't wrote anything in a while but jichaeng deserve all the content soedited myself so there may be mistakes





	I want to listen to your melody

**Author's Note:**

> haven't wrote anything in a while but jichaeng deserve all the content so  
edited myself so there may be mistakes

There isn't much that can phase Jihyo. She's known to be reliable, confident, in charge. Yet when Son Chaeyoung does little more than look at her, annoyance flares within. 

The two of them are undoubtedly the best performers at this school, over fifty awards earned between them. Despite this they could not be more different, even their base views on performance as an art way too distant for the gap to be bridged. Whoever had thought that assigning them to the same practice room was an absolute fool and would definitely be hearing from her soon. 

The amount of times that Chaeyoung had changed her choreography or lyrics at the last minute, recklessly adapting things with no thought and yet still managing to win over her and her hours on hours of work perfecting the routine, pushing herself to her limits, her freedom and freshness and fearlessness rendering all the hard work useless, definitely did not help her feelings of animosity one bit. 

Nor did the schools newspaper, that was keeping a running tally of the number of contests each of them had won. Rumours of arguments that never happened filling the gossip sections regardless of her constant denials.

It was the very same newspaper that had reported on the loss of funding for the schools arts program a few days prior; No doubt that was the reason that the two of them had been shafted into the same room, the fact they had been the schools main source of fame in the past few years seemingly irrelevant. 

It bothers Jihyo. She knows how loudly Chaeyoung blasts her music, has heard it through the walls of a supposedly soundproof room before. How they expect her to practice with her when she knows she'll barely be able to hear herself sing, she's not sure.

The wonderful idea of divided scheduled practice time had already been shot down, Chaeyoung insisting that she can only practice when she's "inspired" or whatever. Jihyo wouldn't be surprised if she'd just said that to disagree with her.

☆

And so it came to be that less than ten minutes into Jihyo's carefully timetabled practice, warm-up barely completed, Chaeyoung enters the room with a person, presumably a friend, by her side. She isn't even wearing clothing suitable to dance in, scuffed jeans that trail on the floor slightly as she walks and a leather jacket that would surely make her overheat with mere minutes of exertion.

Chaeyoung and her friend ignore her, seemingly oblivious to the scowl directed at them as they slump against the far wall, animated chatting interspersed with the scribble of a pen in a dishevelled notebook, interrupting the quiet of the room. Their voices are unfamiliar, a distraction from the dance steps her mind desperately tries to remember. This becomes a regular occurrence, a constant sound that begins to fade into the background allowing Jihyo to refocus, reconfigure her mind, and practice as she should.

But of course Chaeyoung, the schools musical prodigy child, doesn't even care that she's being a disturbance, too busy conversing, wasting the time she should be spending practicing. Obviously she'd only arrived to keep up appearances, likely her next performance would only be completed the day before the competition as it usually was and now the reason behind that was obvious. She seemed to always spend all her time talking and not trying to commit to the task at hand. The fact that she could beat her, without nearly as much dedication, was surely a testament to her talent.

☆

This continued for a while, about three weeks aka almost fifteen practice sessions, before Chaeyoung breaks the trend by appearing at the door alone, no friend in sight. Jihyo doesn't want to get her hopes up, but maybe she's finally there to practice.

Unfortunately she had forgotten what that would entail, deafeningly loud music reminding her why she had been so opposed to this in the first place.

It took a whole two minutes for Jihyo to get tired of the noise and race over to turn the speakers off. Deafening noise being replaced by hollow silence and the pressure of Chaeyoung's glare on her back.

"Why?" Is all Chaeyoung says as Jihyo turns to make eye contact, frowns on both of their faces.

"Why what?" Is the lazy response from Jihyo.

"...did you just turn my music off?" Confusion clouding the question that was supposed to sound sharp.

Jihyo raised an eyebrow, stating plainly, "because it's way too loud."

"The walls are soundproofed so that doesn't really -" Chaeyoung's protest is cut off by a louder voice.

"Yes it does since this is a shared practice room." Jihyo was trying her best to stay calm, taking a breath before continuing, "Not all of us can do that with such noise."

"I uh… sorry?" it was impossible to tell whether she was being genuine with how dazed she sounded, "I forgot that you practice here too now."

"Yeah well i do so…" she cuts herself off, muttering under her breath, "have spent the past few weeks doing so but okay…" She's not sure how but it appears her mumbles were loud enough for Chaeyoung to catch, somehow surprising the girl. Had she really not noticed her?

"You were here? Sorry dude i was working on lyrics with Dahyun and when I'm in writing mode i don't notice anything" words spat out of her mouth hastily, a blush spreading across Charyoung's cheeks and a hand scratching the back of her neck in embarrassment "uh… sorry again. For that noise too i mean."

"It was annoying but.. I got used to it I guess."

"oh sor-" yet another apology attempted.

Too many apologies make Jihyo uncomfortable, especially when they're starting to make her believe her rival is maybe not as terrible as she had thought her to be. A distraction, change of topic, is what they need now and so she says, "Why do you practice with such loud music anyway?"

"Oh its dumb i just. nobody can hear me if I mess up then? and I mess up a lot at first so…. I just prefer it, I guess. Plus then like I can almost feel the beat. Makes it easier to dance in time and stuff." The rambling is… endearing almost, not that Jihyo would admit that, especially not to her face.

"That's weird. I practice with quiet music so i can hear and correct myself. Works well enough for me."

"Well I think that's weird."

Trying to act serious, Jihyo maintains a straight face while already laughing at herself internally, "I see." Panic arises in Chaeyoung's eyes almost instantly, all of Jihyos effort going into preventing the escape of laughter; If she's truly that easy to mess with maybe this whole thing could be not so terrible.

"Uh. I didn't-" 

"Nah its fine. guess we need to figure out how we can both practice then."

"Alternating turns"

"Like every other day or?"

"Hmmm? Oh no i like practicing every day. I mean like." she watches as Chaeyoung's eyebrows furrow, mind whirring as it's rephrasing and restructuring until what she wants to say is formed, "One of us does a run through then switches to rest and such."

"That… doesn't sound terrible" and it's true, it doesn't. Sounds reasonable even, a surprise coming from her, Miss disorganised last minute worker Chaeyoung is actually capable of organising things sometimes it seems.

"I'll take that as a compliment"

"Well it isn't but okay"

"So.. who goes first?" A pause, and then-

"Rock paper scissors?Best of three?"

A grin flashes across Jihyo's face, covered quickly as she responds.

"Oh it's on"

☆

The time passes easily with their shared practice routine now agreed upon, the qualifiers for the National Youth Performers Competition flying by, both of them succeeding with ease.

The time that they spent practicing together has greatly improved Jihyo's view of the other girl. She had showed up for practice every day, easily matching Jihyo's hours; Maybe she had been slightly too quick to assume her laziness.

Clearly music is something the younger is passionate about. Many a time she had finished a run through and turned to exchange places, only to find Chaeyoung had not noticed, too busy instead writing in her notebook, muttering to herself as she edited her words.

Honestly she probably should have been less surprised by this, probably would have been if she hadn't thought the worst of the girl everyone calls her rival. But her clouded judgement had prevented her from seeing the obvious care poured into the meticulously crafted lyrics.

☆

It is when things are going well that something has to go wrong though. Their routine had been going so well that it's only right something had to change and throw them off balance once more.

"Only one entry is allowed per school."  
These are the words delivered to them by Dahyun, Chaeyoung's friend who had been with her previously, who had rushed over to tell them of the new development partway through their practice. She had quickly zoomed off once she noticed the tension this announcement brought. 

The competition was less than a month away by now. Jihyo knew this had to be done intentionally, their school being one of the few with multiple entries and had managed to maintain the top two rankings consistently over the years because of this. Obviously this is the only way they could combat this. Jihyo thought it was quite pathetic, honestly.

The bigger issue was who was going to get to compete, her or Chaeyoung. They were really the school's only hope of winning and all they needed was one more award for their school to take over the title of the most highly awarded by the national competition. Surely with such a title as that their funding could be restored.

Jihyo jumps as she's thrown out of her thoughts by a tentative tap on the shoulder, turning around to see Chaeyoung waiting hesitantly.  
She raises an eyebrow at the girl, prompting her to talk.

"Um I just.. I know you're probably wondering who is gonna perform and like. me too honestly but then i remembered duets are allowed as well as solos and…" she pauses her rambling to look at her audience, trying and failing to analyse Jihyo's expression, "We've both been working hard and it would be a shame to waste that. Plus I think your voice would go super well with this song I wrote recently. Since you have such a wide range both vocally and emotionally and.. yeah."

It's impressive how much more organised her thoughts appear to be than Jihyo's, an idea thought and presented with ease.

Jihyo didn't know quite how to respond. Sure, she could agree and then they could both perform and probably win, but then she'd have to work with Chaeyoung. She looked down at the girl waiting nervously for a response, eyes shimmering brightly as she looked up at her. 

Okay, maybe it wasn't too hard of a decision after all.  
"Sure."

☆

They practice and practice and edit the lyrics and change the choreography to match and then practice some more.

A month is not all too long of a time-span for an entire performance to be learned perfectly, luckily for them though its rather easy for them to match each other, falling into sync quickly.

It's Chaeyoung's idea that they dedicate some of their weekend to practicing too, something even the rigorous hard worker Jihyo rarely did. She still appears slightly late though, this time with the excuse of bringing a hot drink for Jihyo (a hot chocolate because she doesn't like coffee.) so her tardiness is excused.

By the time they reach the final run through its nearly seven in the evening, light outside already faded. Now that the relentless grind through over six hours of practice is finally complete Jihyo goes to her bag, taking out two of the water bottles stowed within. Her intention to pass one of them to Chaeyoung is impeded by the fact that said girl is dozing off against the wall. Maybe next week Jihyo should make practice shorter, weekends are supposed to be for rest after all.

She reaches a hand out to gently shake the girl awake, offering the water with a smile to counteract the pout that appears.

Then, of course, it would be rude of her not to guide Chaeyoung home now, especially since she seems so tired.

It's rather chilly outside, a frisk breeze blowing through them, causing chaeyoung to shiver. It's all too easy for Jihyo to shrug off her own jacket and drape it over the smaller shoulders, an act only acknowledged by a small tired grin.

Obviously she only does this because Chaeyoung is a fool and is only wearing a tank top in comparison to her own long sleeved shirt. Her partner getting ill would damage their performance and that's just unacceptable.

(It has absolutely nothing to do with her wanting to protect Chaeyoung. She definitely did not just do it so she could admire how cute she looks all cuddled up inside an oversized jacket.)

☆

The day of the contest comes all too quickly, a rushed rehearsal in the dressing room all they have time for before they are being ushered on stage.  
Jihyo wants to wish Chaeyoung good luck, tell her she'll be great, that her lyrics are wonderful and there's no way they'll lose to the rest of these amateurs but the words dry up in her throat and she just has to hope that the smile she flashes in her direction right as the music starts is enough.

☆

The euphoria rushes through her, so proud of them both that the beaming grin on her face cannot be shifted, even as they head backstage to await the results.

Her heart is beating unreasonably fast, only in part due to the fact that Chaeyoung has not let go of her hand as she drags her back to the dressing room. Once there they collapse to the floor, giggling giddily until they become breathless, hands never detaching from their tight clasp. Looking at the girl beside her, Jihyo can no longer feel any of the lingering dislike, heart full with something entirely different now as she suppresses the urge to confess.

Jihyo's pretty certain that their performance had been even better than all their practices combined, another last minute change by Chaeyoung helping their chemistry to explode, enthralling the crowd.

Hopefully the judges will agree.

☆

"And the winners of this year's National Youth Performers Competition is…"

There's a pause, tensions rising higher with every second. Jihyo feels Chaeyoung's grasp on her hand tightening, fingers leaving indents in her skin.

"Park Jihyo and Son Chaeyoung from - "

The rest is drowned out by screams from the crowd, but also from the girl beside her, raising their conjoined hands in victory.

This time Jihyo cant stop herself, riding so high on the thrill of winning that there is nothing in the world that feels more right to her than cupping Chaeyoungs chin in her hands and pressing their lips together in the kiss she has been dreaming of as the crowd roars around them.

She leans back slightly, catches sight of eyes shimmering with tears of joy before she's pulled in again.

Chaeyoung's lips against her own feels like joy and hard work and freedom all at once.

Their rivalry has been over for a while, but she's sure the school newspaper will have a much more interesting to be writing about soon.

**Author's Note:**

> please. leave comments. i require validation. thanks for reading ☆  
thanks to tigermochaeyu for being the best and sending me jichaeng pics owo


End file.
